


Crack, Bleed

by wearethewitches



Series: coal to diamond [1]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Human/Vampire Relationship, Hybrids, POV Jasper Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29027988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: They hold New Mexico, but Texas is lost.'They think it's a trap,' Jasper tells Maria.
Relationships: Jasper Hale & Maria, Jasper Hale & Original Female Character(s)
Series: coal to diamond [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129535
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Crack, Bleed

There is an _incident_.

When Maria hears of it, she is at first stunned that one of their newborns managed to keep their control long enough in the first place. To Jasper, it does not make a lick of sense. He follows Maria, on her heels like a dog as they visit the newborn and their ‘pet human’. She’s dead by the time they arrive, of course—her neck snapped from where she’d been thrown against a wall, when she and the newborn were _interrupted._

But there is a problem, one that Maria does not immediately recognise. Jasper though—Jasper sees, he _feels_ it. The newborn is no newborn, for starters; the vampire is on the tail-end of their newborn state and it has shown itself now, here. He grieves for the dead human and his love is strong. His control was enough that he went to see her, seemingly multiple times if the swollen belly is anything.

‘You knew her in life,’ says Jasper, eyes locked on the young vampire, who cradles her cold body so tenderly, so gently. The vampire does not look up at Jasper’s words, still staring at her empty eyes. Jasper glances at her and sees dark tresses like Maria’s, freckles in abundance and a dent where her spine has come loose inside her neck.

‘What is that noise?’ Maria then asks, crouching and hissing. Jasper closes his eyes, wondering what she means—but then he hears it too, like the heart of an animal or a bird. _Where does it come from?_ He frowns, opening his eyes again and tracing it, stepping forwards in time with Maria.

It is then that the young vampire finally snaps out of his stupor, roaring at them and leaping. In such close quarters, it could have meant Jasper’s life, had he not been trained in these matters. To Jasper, it means only relief to tear his arms and head from his shoulders. His grief and his love dissipate into nothingness and all Jasper feels now is…intrigue.

Wonder.

‘My God of War,’ Maria whispers, voice heavenly, ‘oh, my Jasper. _Look_.’

Jasper looks.

Later, it will feel heart-breaking and wrong to see what he is seeing, now. It will be a cold memory of a darker time, a _wrong_ time. Now though, in the present, Jasper sees Maria crouched down beside the human’s corpse, hand digging into the skin of her pregnant belly where a living, human-vampire child has been growing for who knows how long. A child is born, surrounded by death.

It is beautiful.

* * *

The Southern Vampire Wars twist into something else. Before, Maria had held territory the size of countries, Jasper at her side as her weapon and her general. With the great discovery of hybrids, however, their territory rapidly shrinks, stabilising at half the size that it was. To Jasper, it is a blow to his resolve and the other covens in the war are wary, wondering what it going on, asking questions as to why they would give up so easily. They hold New Mexico, but Texas is lost.

‘They think it’s a trap.’ Jasper tells Maria, who shrugs—she already knows. She’s too busy playing with little Anna, who isn’t as little as Jasper would have expected for a child of six months. She’s grown so rapidly; she looks like a child of five, if that. She’s proportioned so strangely, too, almost like an adult.

Maria feeds the young girl a piece of fruit, an orange she sliced herself. Little Anna gobbles it up and it is so, _so_ strange to see the brown-eyed child eating human food when he has seen her tear into the neck of a man five times her size. Jasper is as fascinated by it as he is scared.

‘In ten years, I will have an army of the likes none have seen before,’ Maria proclaims, as if it is the most normal, banal thing in the world. ‘Anna will be my new lieutenant, won’t you, darling?’

‘Of course, Maria,’ Anna chirps like a bird, for fully-formed sentences have been something she could handle since month one. Maria smiles at her exuberance and her God of War is silent.

Jasper stands like a sentinel over her every time Anna sleeps. Maria does not have him handling the armies—she takes over, there, changing the way they work and organising them in a way that they never have before, in this war. Jasper hears her crooning to the ones that are strong and obedient, saying _if you can survive long enough, you can have a child of your own_.

In the privacy of his own mind, Jasper thinks, _I have survived_.

Three years later, Anna has not finished growing, but she is a young teenager. It is enough for Maria, who treats her like her own and trains her as she trained Jasper. Once, Anna asks Jasper if he is her father.

‘Who taught you about mothers and fathers?’ asks Jasper in return. ‘We don’t have those, here.’

Anna, so cherublike and sweet, blood pumping through her veins, but her body possessing all the powers of a fully-grown vampire, scowls and crosses her arms, kicking at the dusty floor. It cracks from the force. ‘I hear Maria talking to the newborns. They behave better when they know they get to be fathers. They still die, though. Did my father die in the fighting? Was he not good enough?’

‘I killed your father with my bare hands.’

‘Does that make you my father, then, instead?’

It does not, in Jasper’s mind—but it makes sense, following Anna’s logic. She has grown up watching the newborns fight each other for the right to have children. Jasper still culls them alongside Maria in the end, adding breeding vampires to the ranks of Maria’s lieutenants twice a year; the men are vile and attack each other often, proclaiming themselves to be the highest ranked. It’s their own miniature tournament, after their newborn months are passed. The turnover rate is steep.

Anna knows those men. She knows their children—her brothers and sisters in arms, whom she is in charge of and rules with an iron fist.

 _Does that make you my father, then, instead?_ Her question echoes through his mind for years, until the day the Volturi finally step foot in the Americas. They have heard whispers from the other covens, who see Maria’s beautiful children and become confused when they bleed, when they step out into the sun and do not shine.

But the Volturi’s arrival is proceeded by the rumours of their journey across the sea. It gives Jasper time.

He starts with Maria. She trusts him implicitly, after all these years together—and while she never lets her guard all the way down around him, it slips enough that he can wrench her head from her body. When it is done, her head burning in the fireplace, Jasper senses Anna behind him, watching in the doorway.

‘Why did you kill her?’ Anna asks, standing tall and grown, eight years of age and an adult simultaneously. Jasper has watched her that entire time, seen Maria rip open the skin of her mother to pull out a bawling, bloody babe that drank blood as easily as milk and been there every step of the way as she grew. The light in her eyes is too much like Maria’s as she grins at him. ‘Are you making me a queen, Jasper?’

‘We’re tearing down Maria’s institution,’ he tells her, stepping closer and closer, smiling at her the way he learnt to smile at Maria. She does not have a power of her own and she is young. Like Maria, she trusts him implicitly, but it is naivety rather than turning a blind eye of which he takes advantage of, only moments later.

The hybrids are all dead before sundown—the vampires are a different story.

* * *

He had made sure to kill the older vampires before running, the breeding ones and the ones who knew, who were on the cusp of being freed upon the human female population or culled. Jasper knows there is nothing he can do to stop rumours from spreading, as that is far from what his power controls; however, he _can_ prevent the Volturi from discovering exactly how to create their own hybrids.

Jasper has no idea how the vampiric government works, but he knows they were founded on the basis of keeping vampires a secret. Perhaps they will willingly let the knowledge be lost, for the sake of the vampire community; while it was easier to hide the hybrid children amongst humans, their growth rate was unprecedented and far more difficult to conceal. Their mothers always died, too, unless the sons or fathers turned the women as they laid there, bleeding out.

It sickens him. His recall is crystal clear, except for his human life and all Jasper thinks about is how much red he has spilled. It was different, destroying newborns. They were soldiers, immortals—and if he did have any trouble with it, he pushed it aside because he knew he’d made them die happy, using his powers.

Hybrids, though…hybrids have their own crimson lifeblood. He sees Anna’s cheerful face, so ready to murder any and all who got in her way—then he sees her head torn off, messily and bloodily. Vampires don’t bleed, they _crack_.

Jasper makes himself cower, fearing what he has done and what he will do, in the future; for surely, he will kill again, even if it’s just his latest meal.

‘You shouldn’t starve yourself,’ then says a woman, a vampire like him, who feels so _warm_ and _accepting._ ‘It won’t work. You’ll just turn feral.’

And Jasper, who _has_ been starving himself and had been feeling the edges of insanity creeping up along his mind, turns to the vampire and raises an eyebrow. The sarcasm that escapes him physically is undeniable and of all things, it makes her laugh to see his nonverbal, _no, really?_ Amazed, Jasper asks her.

‘Who are you?’

The woman smiles, reaching out and taking his hand in her own, squeezing softly, as if he is precious to her. Her feelings match.

‘My name is Alice, Jasper Whitlock—and I can see the future.’


End file.
